As the new year begins, I’ve taken a look back at my favourite pictures and albums with my Music Photographer Best of 2025.

2025 was a year of noise, festival fields, and fleeting moments that stick. From Slayer in London, Green Man Festival in Wales, and here in Cornwall. Boardmasters Festival, the Eden Sessions and the Princess Pavilions in Falmouth. 

Slayer at Finsbury Park was a long-time dream come true. Thanks to Ryan at Crashburn and the Slayer team, I was able to photograph one of my favourite ever bands. This came the day after Black Sabbath & Ozzy Osbourne’s final show at Villa Park in Birmingham, so it was a weekend of high emotions. I didn’t photograph the Black Sabbath show, but just being there was incredible.

With Clunk Magazine, I shot Boardmasters Festival and Green Man Festival.
Boardmasters was the usual sun, sea, and chaos as we raced around the stages getting everything covered. Whilst Green Man Festival was a lot more chilled and featured more of the music that I love. It was my first time at the festival, and I can easily say it’s one of the best festivals I’ve ever attended.

The Eden Sessions slowed things down, but only just. It always has a lineup that seems to cover something for everyone. And it’s one of the most unique settings for a gig with the biomes looming behind the stage. My personal favourite was Deftones, but getting to take my daughter Martha along to see the Libertines & Frank Turner was pretty special.

As summer turned to autumn, I found myself back at London’s Royal Albert Hall with Crashburn where we covered ‘An Evening with Nicole Scherzinger’. 

This has been another amazing year of Live Music, and these are the photos that shaped my 2025. And when you get to the bottom of the page, you’ll find my albums of the year. 

From the live sets that inspired many of the photos above, here’s the roundup of my favourite albums of the year. Spanning genres, scenes, and stories from across the music world, these records left a lasting mark on me. 

If you haven’t heard any of them, check them out. And because rock ’n’ roll demands it, TURN IT UP TO 11.

1. Geese – Getting Killed
Getting Killed is an album that balances between panic and brilliance. It’s unpredictable and full of hooks that only announce themselves after the dust settles. It’s what some would call a ‘grower’, and Cameron Winters’ vocals give this record a different edge to anything that Geese have done before.

2. Turnstile – Never Enough
Turnstile returned with a record that has given us one of the best riffs of 2025. When ‘Birds’ kick in, it’s like being jolted awake in the best possible way. But the album Never Enough has pushed their melodic hardcore into brighter, stranger, and more euphoric territory, and the live shows have turned catharsis into communion.

3. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Death Hilarious
With Death Hilarious, Pigs x7 deliver another thick and sludgy sermon! It’s loud, unhinged, and darkly funny. Another band that is a formidable live force, and this record proves once again that chaos can be its own kind of transcendence.

4. Viagra Boys – viagr aboys
Equal parts self-parody and razor-sharp observation, viagr aboys is the band at their most deliriously unfiltered. The grooves are grimy, and I love the twisted humour. The whole thing somehow feels both totally absurd and deeply sincere.

5. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard – Phantom Island
Another year, another Gizzard album, and Phantom Island might be one of their richest yet. The orchestra adds to their hypnotic sounds, and it plays like a lost myth set to psych-rock fever dream.

6. Big Special – National Average
This album was dropped on us without any warning, and National Average is punk poetry with its sleeves rolled up! Bruised, booming, and big-hearted. Big Special have tapped into something raw and communal, and their set at this year’s Green Man festival was nothing short of heroic.

7. Deftone – Private Music
Moody, atmospheric, and quietly crushing, Private Music finds Deftones drifting into a dreamlike space where distortion and vulnerability meet. It’s a slow burn, but once it catches, it makes sense. They are also included in my photos of the year from the show at Cornwall’s Eden Project.

8. CMAT – Euro-Country
CMAT has been my music revolution in 2025. When I finally saw her and the sexy CMAT band live in the summer, everything fell into place. And then they dropped Euro-Country. It’s a clever, glittering fusion of heartbreak, humour, and Europop twang. She spins big feelings into bigger choruses, crafting a record that’s as theatrical as it is deeply human. 

8. GANS – Good For The Souls
Good For The Souls feels soulful, angular, and brimming with restless energy. GANS balance introspection with sharp, pulsing rhythms, building a sound that’s both intimate and expansive.

10. Little Simz – Lotus
An album that caught me off guard, and totally drew me in like I wasn’t expecting. With Lotus, Little Simz delivered another masterclass in precision and self-possession. The production blooms around her, but it’s her clarity, lyrical and emotional, that makes this record feel untouchable.

11. Sharon Van Etten – Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory
Sharon Van Etten turns inward with devastating grace on this stunning collection. Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory is tender, bruised, and quietly triumphant — a record that traces the fault lines of connection and comes away stronger.